Bloody Steak
by tepid sponge bath
Summary: Whatever everyone else believes, Akabane Kuroudo can be a man of very human appetites. And you shouldn't stand in the way of a Jackal and his meat...


**Disclaimer**: I do not own Get Backers, or the characters thereof. Neither do I make any profit from this endeavor.

**Bloody Steak**

It had been a long day. Or, rather, a long couple of weeks. Akabane Kuroudo had just gotten home from a job that had involved, among other things, traipsing across two continents and a small quantity of wild strawberries, and he was tired. He would never have admitted it to anyone (and he prided himself on being able to hide fatigue well enough that no-one ever noticed), but all he wanted to do was undress and lie down for a very long nap, and then take a very long, very hot bath before having dinner at a very nice restaurant. Akabane rather thought that he deserved a little culinary treat, and he certainly could afford it: his employers for that last job had paid him handsomely.

The phone had rung just as he was undoing his tie.

It was Hevn, and, seeing as it was her, of course she was calling to offer him a job. Akabane was in no mood for it. Nevertheless, he listened politely as the Contractor detailed it, enthusiastically, doing her professional best to convince him that it would be a mistake – possibly the greatest mistake he would make in his career, in his lifetime – to turn her offer down, taking off several more items of clothing as he did so.

"I've just finished one job, Hevn-san. I'll have to say no to that," he said, sinking down on his bed, and stretching luxuriously like a great cat.

"Akabane-san, you know I wouldn't have contacted you if I didn't think you were the right man for the job."

Akabane had no doubt about that. There were, however, times (though admittedly very few of them) when they did not see eye to eye about what was the right job for whom. And he believed that this was one of them.

"The Get Backers are involved in this too," she practically purred into the phone.

"Oh?" Doctor Jackal sat up, frozen in the act of unbuttoning his shirt, suddenly alert, his purple eyes narrowed in anticipation.

"Yes. Though you'll be working _with_ them, not trying to slice them into mincemeat. If you take the job." _If._ The minx.

"I am nothing if not professional, Hevn-san." And professionals, he did not add, did not slice their colleagues into mincemeat while they were working together. What happened afterwards, though, was open to debate.

"Good. I'll see you at the Honky-Tonk at seven." He could hear the barely-concealed triumph in Hevn's voice. "You will be there, right?"

"Yes."

"Nice talking to you then, Doctor Jackal." The line went dead.

Akabane folded his phone shut with a little click. Seven o'clock, she said. There was still time for a quick shower, and, maybe, if he hurried, a bite to eat at the Honky-Tonk. Paul-san's pizza, as he recalled, was perfectly palatable. The Transporters stomach gave a little growl; apparently he was hungrier than he realized. He would _make_ time for that pizza.

*

There had been no time for pizza. Or any other edibles, for that matter. Akabane had arrived at the little cafe in time to hear Ban and Paul, united for once, harangue Ginji (with regrettably bad language on Ban's part) for, as far as the Transporter could understand things, somehow having turned the Honky-Tonk's pizza oven into a sad, twisted piece of scrap metal. And before he could ask Paul for a little something to tide him over, Hevn entered the shop, more dolled up than usual in a cocktail dress and with her hair in an elegantly messy updo, demanding that everybody get in Ban's car _now_, with strong implications of an unpleasant 'or else' hovering in the undertones.

And there had been traffic. Ban's Subaru, despite its nitro abilities, was no match for Friday evening traffic. With his stomach rumblings becoming more and more frequent and urgent, it was all Akabane could do, seated in the back seat as he was (for Hevn, being the lady, was up front in the passenger's seat, much to Ginji's horror when he realized who he'd be sharing the back of the little car with), to not ask or beg or plead for them to stop somewhere, anywhere for food. He was beginning to regret not having that rancid-looking sashimi they had offered to him on the plane, and things like bags of potato chips and, God forbid, even fast food drive-thrus were starting to be appetizing. And by some uncanny twist of fate, there were none of even those to be found on the route they were taking.

Akabane was not accustomed to skipping meals, unless he was on a job, and it Did Not Make Him Happy. Some of his displeasure escaped the iron grip he normally held it in and showed on his face, making Ginji emit a high, panicked keening like the air being let out of a balloon while trying to move as far away from Jackal as possible without actually leaping from the moving Subaru.

When they finally arrived at their destination - a grand villa some distance from the city, every mile of which the Transporter had felt with his stomach - Akabane was hard put to do more than exchange pleasantries (which the Get Backers were not doing, what with Ginji goggling at the mansion, and Ban being his usual gruff self) with the client, a handsome woman in her fifties, who Hevn introduced as Miss Yagami Karen. That was until she said that any discussion of the job could wait until after dinner. Upon hearing that, Akabane could have thrown down his hat, scooped her into his arms, and given her a long, thorough kiss, never mind what anybody else thought, even Midou Ban who was normally the subject of those particular thoughts of Jackal's. The Transporter did, however, manage to restrain himself to a heartfelt, "Thank you."

There were rolls and butter, a light salad, and French onion soup, all of which were undeniably delicious, but were mere entrees, maddeningly whetting Jackal's appetite for the main course, which Miss Yagami announced to be, "Fillet Mignon."

She laughed delightedly at the puzzled look on Ginji's face. "It's steak," she explained kindly. "Steak cooked in bacon for the fat and flavor."

"Steak!" exclaimed the retrieval agent, coming close to jumping up and down in his seat, fear of Akabane forgotten at the prospect of a good side of beef. "Meat, Ban-chan! We're getting meat!" And he would have continued in this vein if his partner hadn't dealt him a blow to the head that would have rendered an ordinary mortal unconscious, admonishing him to shut up, and stop bouncing around like a demented pingpong ball.

When the dish came in, Akabane came close to following Ginji's example. It looked good, and smelled heavenly and, and...was disappointingly, crushingly tough. Hevn was digging daintily into hers, Ban was dealing with his by sheer brute force, and Ginji had somehow contrived to put the entire serving into his mouth all at once, chewing it like a cow with its cud. They all looked like they were having an easier time of it than he was. It wasn't the steak knife, he was sure of that, being something of an expert on blades; the knife was in perfect working order. It was the meat itself, which, the Transporter thought uncharitably, must have come from a rheumatic great-great-great-granddaddy of a cow who had, in its youth, toughened itself up by lifting weights and running laps around its paddock every morning and evening.

After what felt like eons of sawing at the thing, Akabane was hungrier than ever. It was just Too Much. He put his knife down across the plate, as good manners dictated that he should, closed his eyes, and counted to ten. Then he said two words, softly, his voice a breath of a rumor of a whisper.

"_Bloody Rain._"

The scalpels took out the steak, the fine china it had been sitting on, and the tablecloth and dining table underneath that. Fragments of meat, slivers of porcelain, and splinters of wood showered his dining companions, every single one of them dumbfounded, except for Ginji who had plastered himself onto Ban's lap.

Apparently unconcerned, Akabane turned to his hostess, smiling amicably.

"May I inquire, Yagami-san, where the kitchens are located?" Jackal's smile was decidedly fixed. "I would like to pay my compliments to the chef."


End file.
